The Great Adventure Labhttps://thegreatadventurelab.com
Making robotics, science and engineering fun for future generations! (formerly Adventures With Robots)Fri, 18 Jan 2019 17:45:02 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3Chicagohttp://www.thegreatadventurelab.com/chicago
Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:44:39 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=8449The post Chicago appeared first on The Great Adventure Lab.
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]]>Two of your instructors ran the Terrapin Mud Run!https://thegreatadventurelab.com/two-instructors-ran-terrapin-mud-run/
Sun, 04 May 2014 18:49:36 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=7264Hopefully you've already figured out that The Great Adventure Lab only hires AWESOME science and engineering instructors. Two of them , Diego and Barry, competed in the Terrpain Mud Run today at Terrapin Adventures in Savage, Md. We also sponsored two guest runners, Etienne, a visiting engineering student from France, and Indy, our founder's son! [...]

]]>Hopefully you’ve already figured out that The Great Adventure Lab only hires AWESOME science and engineering instructors. Two of them , Diego and Barry, competed in the Terrpain Mud Run today at Terrapin Adventures in Savage, Md. We also sponsored two guest runners, Etienne, a visiting engineering student from France, and Indy, our founder’s son!

Diego, a LEGO robotics instructor for The Great Adventure Lab, finishes clean at the Terrapin Mud Run in Savage, Md.

If you missed Diego this morning, look for him this summer: he’s scheduled to teach at some of our summer camps!

Our runners had a blast running and crawling through mud … and going over other obstacles …. on their way to a foamy finish!!

]]>This is why parents and PTAs love ushttps://thegreatadventurelab.com/parents-ptas-love-us/
Sat, 03 May 2014 19:12:02 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=7256Are you tired of McScience clubs at your school? You know, the ones that cram tons of kids into one room with one teacher, and then run a demonstration at the front of the class? Try us out! The Great Adventure Lab features small class sizes and hands-on, fun AND educational STEM activities for every [...]

Are you tired of McScience clubs at your school? You know, the ones that cram tons of kids into one room with one teacher, and then run a demonstration at the front of the class? Try us out! The Great Adventure Lab features small class sizes and hands-on, fun AND educational STEM activities for every kid, every time! We teach your kids how to program, engineer and conduct science experiments! This video tells all. It’s just one minute and 45 seconds long …. If you’d like to see high-quality STEM activities in your afterschool activities, please share this video with your PTA!

]]>Cubestormer!https://thegreatadventurelab.com/cubestormer/
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:26:27 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=6747Hey kids, have you built a bunch of LEGO Robotics kits? Have you ever taken them apart and built something totally different? Check out what these two engineers did with some Mindstorms parts (ok, and a lot more ....). Hint: it only takes a bit more than 3 seconds! [youtube height="315" width="560"]http://youtu.be/X0pFZG7j5cE[/youtube]

]]>Summer Camp registration is now open!https://thegreatadventurelab.com/summer-camp-registration-now-open/
Mon, 24 Feb 2014 19:23:46 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=6617Grab your towels and sunscreen! It's time to sign up for The Great Adventure Lab's awesome outdoor/ indoor robotics, science and engineering summer camps! This year, in addition to our super-fun summer camps for rising K-7 students, we are introducing a new half-day morning camp for rising K-1 students. We have plenty of new activities [...]

]]>Girls Get Science in the news!https://thegreatadventurelab.com/girls-get-science-news/
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:08:08 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=6432So you thought we were asleep on this blog ... Nope. We were wide awake the whole time trying to go out into the world and make a difference that would be worth blogging about. So here's something. On Nov. 2, we held our sixth-ever Girls Get Science event. This is a parent-daughter event for [...]

]]>So you thought we were asleep on this blog … Nope. We were wide awake the whole time trying to go out into the world and make a difference that would be worth blogging about.

So here’s something. On Nov. 2, we held our sixth-ever Girls Get Science event. This is a parent-daughter event for girls who may … or may not be interested in science, technology, engineering, the whole hooha. During the first hour of the event, the girls do hands-on 30-minute activities in two of: Lego robotics, engineering and video game programming (plus this time, a dash of physics in the form of a tablecloth pull).

And here are plenty of photos! (This is what your girls are supposed to look like when their learning about STEM!)

While the girls were having hands-on fun in our workshops, the girls’ parents, mostly moms (but plenty of dads) attend a panel discussion where three women scientists and engineers talk about how they came to be interested in science …. who encouraged or discouraged them … were they the only girls in their classes? … and how do we encourage our daughters today to be curious about STEM, instead of ruling it out because it’s too “hard,” “boring” or worse … “just for boys”?

Our speakers this round were Mamta Nagaraja, who works on space missions for NASA; Keren Witkin of the National Cancer Institute; and Molly McMahon, a science teacher at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Md.

In the second hour, the girls reunited with their parents and went around the room visiting with each speaker to hear more about what they do.

]]>How do you drive on Mars?https://thegreatadventurelab.com/how-do-you-drive-on-mars/
Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:37:06 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=6017Very carefully, and very very slowly .... i.e. 40 meters a day, according to this video. Curiosity, the Mars Rover that landed on the red planet last August, is now starting its long trek toward Mt. Sharp. Check out this short video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

]]>Very carefully, and very very slowly …. i.e. 40 meters a day, according to this video. Curiosity, the Mars Rover that landed on the red planet last August, is now starting its long trek toward Mt. Sharp. Check out this short video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

]]>The Science of Discrimination – A Class Dividedhttps://thegreatadventurelab.com/the-science-of-discrmination-a-class-divided/
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 14:23:39 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=5970A two-day science experiment shows how discrimination based on eye color affected friendships and performance in a previously cooperative and friendly class of third graders. The teacher was Jane Elliott, of Riceville, Iowa. In honor of National Brotherhood Week she had planned to have her class build a teepee and learn a Sioux Prayer. But [...]

A two-day science experiment shows how discrimination based on eye color affected friendships and performance in a previously cooperative and friendly class of third graders.

The teacher was Jane Elliott, of Riceville, Iowa. In honor of National Brotherhood Week she had planned to have her class build a teepee and learn a Sioux Prayer. But the day before, Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot. So she made the difficult decision to lead her class through this painful experiment.

Here’s how PBS Frontline described her decision:

“I felt desperately,” she says, “that there had to be a way to do more as a teacher than simply tell children that racial prejudice is irrational, that racial discrimination is wrong. We’ve all been told those things. We know them, at least in the sense that we mouth them at appropriate times. Yet we continue to discriminate, or to tolerate it in others, or to do nothing to stop it. What I had racked my brain to think of the night before was a way of letting my children find out for themselves, personally, deeply, what discrimination was really like, how it felt, what it could do to you. Now the time had come to try it.”

What happened next in Jane Elliott’s classroom was, as far as she knew, a product of her own mind. She had never heard of anyone else who had done it. She was not even sure it was a good idea. She knew only that she had to do something, and this was all she had thought of to try.

Fourteen years later, Elliott held a reunion with her third graders to talk about how the lesson had affected their attitudes toward racism and their parenting strategies.

We just showed this to a rising fourth grader and a rising sixth grader … the sixth grader was appalled until we explained the roles would be reversed, and then she was still very upset. A painful way to learn what it’s like to be in the undergroup.

]]>Rube Goldberg machine created by our summer campers!https://thegreatadventurelab.com/rube-goldberg-machine-created-by-our-summer-campers/
Sat, 22 Jun 2013 19:01:11 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=5945Our summer camps (you can still sign up!) feature lots of classes we don't offer during the year, including Crazy Contraptions! One of the contraptions our campers make is a Rube Goldberg machine. This one is quite involved! As you can see from the instructor's description below, the campers who created this machine used marbles, [...]

Our summer camps (you can still sign up!) feature lots of classes we don’t offer during the year, including Crazy Contraptions! One of the contraptions our campers make is a Rube Goldberg machine. This one is quite involved! As you can see from the instructor’s description below, the campers who created this machine used marbles, golf balls, balloons … AND managed at one point to get a marble to drop to start a Lego Robotics program involving a motion sensor!

How it works:

The golf-ball rolls away from the computer, pulling out a piece of paper that was holding up a marble from rolling down the tube to the computer. The marble then hits the ‘Y’ key on the computer starting a WeDo program that waits for the motion sensor. The golf-ball runs down the track and gets in the way of the motion sensor (it was actually supposed to hit the balloon and make it wiggle but oh well). The motor then spins and drops another marble onto a track, which falls down and hits a see-saw that launches a domino into others, and they go down a track and up some blocks to finally push off the last domino which is attached to a tennis ball.

The falling domino pulls the tennis ball off the table where it is precariously balanced and pulls the bell up. The bell hits the domino case and it rings when it gets to the top! Awesome!

]]>Edamame Piano – Electronics for Kidshttps://thegreatadventurelab.com/electronics-for-kids/
Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:28:24 +0000http://thegreatadventurelab.com/?p=5080Hey STEM fans, Does anyone in your household have the warped idea that electronics is hard to learn, not fun, way too wiry? (Ok, yeah, we concede the part about the wires). Well tonight, The Great Adventure Lab received its Makey Makey kits! For the uninitiated, Makey Makey is an electronics board that allows you [...]

Does anyone in your household have the warped idea that electronics is hard to learn, not fun, way too wiry? (Ok, yeah, we concede the part about the wires). Well tonight, The Great Adventure Lab received its Makey Makey kits! For the uninitiated, Makey Makey is an electronics board that allows you to make anything into a key (as in key on a computer keypad) using alligator clips.

We used ours to make an Edamame piano! THIS is the kind of thing we think of when we think of electronics for kids!

We’re going to make all sorts of strange pianos and other creations in our Fun with Electricity classes – they are part of every summer camp. Register here!